July 1, 1975

Dr. G.J.V. Nossal
ED
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Post Office, Royal Melbourne Hospital
Victoria 3050, Australia

Dear Gus,

It really was just great fun seeing you again in Geneva.
But what happened to Lynn? I thought we might have some chance to
get together.

I did want to make sure to follow up with you about the business
of getting better statistics on occupational correlation. I am sending
you some tidbits of a study that we wanted to continue a few years ago
but found very frustrating indeed. It was lucky to be able to get just
the roster of the ACS and tantalizing that it is almost impossible to
go any further in any practical, efficient way in pursuing the occupational
histories of these people. The experiment that I tried was to use
bibliographic information to get some clues about the kind of exposure
that the subjects in question may have had but this proved to be a bit
diffuse in terms of getting the right keys for data processing and I
perhaps did not follow it up as vigorously as it still may deserve.
It would have been really {illuminating to be able to get hold of the
outcomes of people who work in the photographic chemicals area on account
of their probable heavy exposure to aniline derivatives, probably similar
to the kinds of things that Bruce Ames is so. worried about!

If IARC has some way of coping with this, that would be magnificéant
and I hope you will prod them in that direction. I think they are going to
have to go rather deeply into negotiations with national health statistical
authorities to be able to make much more headway.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr